With the NFL televising its draft for the first time in 1980, prospective players could witness the beginning of their history in the league. Which team would choose them and in what round?
Mike Guman, a running back from Penn State, discovered that biding his time, to find out who and when, to be difficult parts of that experience.
"A lot of the pre-draft stuff had me going somewhere around the third round," Guman said. "And so I was waiting in my dorm room with girlfriend at the time and now my wife, and we had a lot of good players that were going. The first round went and I saw Bruce Clark go. And Matt Millen and Matt Suhey in the second round. I was waiting for my name to be called and the next round went by, and it didn't happen.
"I was getting a little frustrated and disappointed. I was just like, 'I can't stand sitting here anymore. Let's get out of here.' So we just started walking around town. And Matt Millen, who I roomed with for three years, he comes driving by and rolls down the window and says, 'Hey, you just got taken by the Rams! You're going out to L.A.' And so that's how I found out."
Literally finding out by voicemail before there was actually voicemail, Guman would have liked to stay closer to home in Pennsylvania, but was thrilled to be chosen by the Rams in the sixth round.
"We really didn't get a chance to see the Rams all that much although I was a fan of theirs growing up as a kid," Guman said. "Roman Gabriel and the Fearsome Foursome and all of that, certainly, I was familiar with all of it and excited. I thought it would be a nice place to try to make a career."
Guman's cross-country move was made a little easier when his Penn State teammate, offensive tackle Irv Pankey, was also drafted by the Rams, and they roomed together.
His adjustment at the team's facility was made a little easier, as well, thanks to the swift relationships he made with running backs coach Hewritt Dixon and some of his new veteran teammates.
"We had a good group of guys," Guman said. "Elvis Peacock, he was a really good guy. He had a big personality, a very friendly guy, could talk to anybody. Cullen Bryant was sort of quiet, and a good guy, too. And some of the veterans, once you were there, you earned your keep, so to speak. Carl Ekern, Nolan Cromwell, Jackie Slater, they all sort of helped a little bit."
After making the team, the rookie contributed on special teams, but also saw time in the backfield due to Wendell Tyler being sidelined for the first eight games while recovering from a hip injury he suffered in a car accident during the offseason.
During his first season, Guman rushed for 410 yards and four touchdowns, caught 14 passes for 131 yards, and because of a conversation he had with the head coach, Ray Malavasi, ended up also throwing a pass. And it didn't turn out too bad either – a 31-yard touchdown to Preston Dennard during Los Angeles' Week 12 game in New Orleans, which the Rams won, 27-7.
"He knew I was left-handed and thought, 'Maybe we could put a little halfback pass in here,' because he knew I was a pitcher in college. He said, 'Can you throw the ball?' And I said, 'Yeah, I can throw the football.' So we added that play in," Guman said.
"It wasn't the prettiest pass, but it got there, and Preston made a great catch. And (veteran quarterback) Pat Haden was on the team, and the running joke was that I had more touchdown passes than Pat did."
After rushing for 1,109 yards and 10 touchdowns, catching 63 passes for 571 yards, and throwing another touchdown pass to Dennard during his first three years, the 1983 season brought changes for Guman and the Rams when USC's John Robinson replaced Malavasi as coach.
"Change sometimes is hard. We came off of a season with a strike the year before and were 2-7," Guman said. "You don't like losing, especially when we were in the playoffs the first year. Then we lost a couple years in a row and they had to make a move. So we were excited for Coach Robinson coming in out of college. We wanted to win. We wanted to get back in the playoffs.
"And it was quite an experience, that first year in '83, for all of us. It was probably one of the hardest training camps I ever went through. He was trying to sort of weed out and find who he wanted on his team, and who was going to play the way he wanted them to play. It was tough. But it was worthwhile."
Robinson wasn't the only new face around the Rams that year. They drafted Eric Dickerson out of SMU in the first round and he replaced practically every halfback on the team. That meant Guman would have to learn another position, and became a fullback.
"When John came in, we switched to this sort of one-back-set-type of thing with Eric the main guy," Guman said. "So my role changed. We had that H-back position that was a quasi-tight end, fullback-type of position that I sort of fit the mold to be in, and I was happy with that.
"I just wanted to contribute, even if it was just by making a couple of blocks so that he could get yardage, and we could win. And I knew I'd be involved in the passing game a little bit more, catching passes out of the backfield and things like that."
The following season, Guman was involved in making history when Dickerson broke O.J. Simpson's NFL single-season rushing record with 2,105 yards. A mark which still stands today, 40 years later.
"We obviously didn't say, 'Oh, we're going to go out and set the record for single yardage in a season.' It just didn't happen that way. We knew John liked running the football. He liked establishing the line of scrimmage and doing those types of things. And we had a back who certainly was special," Guman said.
"As the season went on and he'd be getting good yardage every game, it got to the point when we thought, 'Hey, you know, maybe he's got a shot at this. We're going to do whatever we've got to do. Eric will do his job. We've got to do our job to try to get it.' And I think everybody took an awful lot of pride in knowing that we got the record.
"And to tell you what kind of person Eric is, Adrian Peterson, when he got close however many years ago [2012], if he had a big (final) game, he could have broken Eric's record. And it didn't happen. I had Eric's number, and I texted him and said, 'Hey, congrats! You still have the record.' And he texted me back, 'No, no, no. We still have it.' That meant a lot to me."
Guman accumulated many fond memories during his nine seasons with the Rams, 1980-88, both on and off the field.
"Your teammates are what make it such a special experience," he said. "The games are wonderful; they sort of fade as time goes on. But it's the memories, the joking around in the locker room, it's when we were on the practice field. It's just the people, and we had a great group of guys that were there for probably about six, seven, eight, nine years together.
"We took a lot of pride in making the playoffs for a good chunk of those years when John was there. Getting to the (1985) NFC Championship Game meant a lot. It was those darn Bears, though. I think we were probably the second-best team in the league. They just happened to be the better team, and were in our conference.
"And I think what makes me most proud of my career is that I was able to play the way that I played. Meaning that I tried to play hard every play, and was able to contribute to help give the team success. When you're on a team sport, anything you can do to make success for the team is the thing that's most satisfying."
Following his playing days, Guman and his family moved back to Pennsylvania, where he went from the football field and into the financial field.
Starting with Mackenzie Ivy funds, he went on to work for The Phoenix Funds, and then for the next 25 years, was with OppenheimerFunds, which was bought by Invesco in May 2019.
"My clients were financial advisors," Guman said. "I would market our investment products to them so that they could use them with their clients. It was a relationship business. Being back here, from my days in the NFL and at Penn State, I'd tell my wife when I was going to work, I'm just going to talk with my friends.
"Two-thirds of the talk was about football or sports or how's the family, and then the last third was about business. And it was very, very rewarding just from the perspective of I enjoyed what I did."
Making their home in Allentown, Guman and his wife. Karen, have five adult children: Andrew, Emily, Joan. Rebecca, and Abbey; and 14 grandchildren.
Retiring as a Senior Advisor Consultant with Invesco this past April, Guman has been battling with Amyloidosis, a disease which put him in congestive heart failure for the last year and a half.
"I see a good cardiac care team here in the Lehigh Valley," he said. "The medication that I'm taking is helping. The disease is incurable, and it's a progressive disease that keeps getting worse, but there's a medication that can slow down the progression of it.
"And with that, and with some of the other medications I'm taking, I'm in a pretty good spot. My symptoms are manageable and controllable."
